In the Car

I remember when I was younger that driving from our "little brown house on 62" to Alliance or Salem seemed like a LONG distance.  It was all of five to seven miles.

I remember moving to Mt. Vernon, and in order to do major shopping or go to a movie we had to drive to Evansville, a distance of 15-18 miles depending on to which side of town we were traveling.

I remember my first teaching job at West Central in Francesville and living in Monticello.  I was 30 minutes from school, and I thought that was too far to be driving each day.  I had chosen Monticello for my first apartment because my boyfriend at the time was a student at Purdue, and I wanted to be close enough to him so I could see him occasionally.  Actually he was a 30 minute drive away from my apartment also but I saw him only on weekends.  Too far to drive in 1973.

Now we live in the country, 10 miles from Francesville where we attend church, where the drugstore is, and where we could 'run to the grocery store'  In the other direction is Winamac which is also a 10 mile drive and offers another grocery store, the Pizza King, and a CVS plus Ace Hardware and McDonalds.

Driving to a Walmart is at least 30 minutes one way and Krogers is the same distance.  Going to Lafayette is longer - one hour exactly from our drive to the Target parking lot.

If traffic is good, we can drive to Hilary's house in 45-50 minutes and add 15-20 more to that to arrive at Megan's house.

Driving to West Central from our house was 15 miles, but to Rochester to teach the dual credit classes was 29 which was the same distance from our house to the Logansport campus.  Each time I went to Kokomo, it was a good hour's drive.

My point?  I spend a lot of time in the car.  Our cars rack up the miles.  We spend money on gas.

I thought that once I stopped teaching, my time in the car would diminish somewhat.   Not so.

Monday - home to Pyrmont to Monticello to Rural King, then to Walmart, then back to the Chinese restaurant, then to the PO, then north to Sandy's house for tomatoes.  Next stop was The Farm to check on Agnes then to Medaryville to Dollar General then to Winamac to Ace Hardware then home.

Tuesday - home to Lafayette to Dr. Perry's office then to the mall (Kohls) then to O'Charley's then to Sams Club for gas, then to Meijer.  Up to the Hoosier Heartland to Delphi, to Monticello, to Buffalo, then to Francesville then to The Farm to drop off the medicine, then home.

Tomorrow will be more of the same - home to Pyrmont then to Indianapolis to the Children's Museum then back to Pyrmont.  Megan and I will go to Rensselaer for the Torchbearer Meeting, then back to Pyrmont, then Gary and I will go home.

Driving/riding in the car is part of my life.  I don't see any other way to function without driving everywhere, each and every day.  Not too often do we stay at home ALL DAY without going someplace for some reason. 

This is why it takes so long to do things on a daily basis.  This is why our time flies by.  This is why we spend so much money on gas.  This is why our cars have such high mileage.  

This is our life.  Do I want it to change?  Not really, because I don't want to miss out on the things we are doing.

But some days, I just am tired of being in the car.